The Sevan Podcast - #567 - Top 100 Female CrossFit Athletes

Episode Date: August 27, 2022

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usually by the end of the episode. What's the minute in the episode this week where you're going to share your private uh text messages very good question very good question stay tuned stay tuned i should just close i should just close that window what was the so so last a few days ago we did the power rankings of the uh top 100 there is nothing and correct me if i'm wrong there's nothing like this in the crossfit space right no i think uh this is the first time someone's you know taken the chance or dared to rank all

the way down to 100 athletes or more does Does anyone even do any rankings besides you? I know that you have had done some rankings with some of your colleagues and former colleagues over at the Morning Chalk Up, but is there anywhere where there's like – is there anyone else who does it? Does CrossFit do it? No. I think I started doing it at the beginning of this past season, and that was kind of the first time.

And then it evolved over the course of the season where I started adding to the list. And I think just a lot of things have evolved this year, like we talked about last week, so that doing something like this makes a little bit more sense than it maybe ever has before, just from a digestibility perspective. What do you mean? Fans know more about the sport and the athletes as the media space has changed and evolved over the last two years. Did what happen? Who have been the – would you say that Armand Hammer was, prior to this year, one of the biggest um uh he stopped a few years before that maybe around 2019 2020 he sort of transitioned out

what happened did he get exhausted i knew i know he had a kid but did he get exhausted they moved from texas i think to california okay i Possibly. I'm not sure if he's shifted his priorities professionally. Were you friends with him? Yeah. Armin and I worked together a few times. I've met him, talked to him a bunch. Yeah.

Good guy. Hard working guy. But if anyone were to do it, it would have been someone like him. It's not Craig, Richie, Nate, Heber and Mars. Wiki wiki not their not their domain

no right right they have a they have a they have a different approach to reporting yeah those guys will give you maybe the broad picture or they'll give you a more detailed and in-depth dive of a much smaller group of athletes individuals can and when i was making content you could kind of lump me up with them too that's what i I did. I was more into athletes' lifestyles, not sort of like stats and rankings and things like that. But Armand Hammer may have been, right? He was more analytical in his approach. Yeah. I think that he and maybe some of the guys he worked with on the – was there a podcast way back in the day?

Wodcast podcast? Or the Barbell Shugs? Yeah, those two podcasts would talk in a little bit more depth about, but usually the top of the CrossFit world. Like maybe if you weren't in the top 20 or 30 and didn't get too much recognition here, what we're trying to do is expand beyond that and look at who could be in the next 20 or 30 in the next one to five years. And then the other people, obviously, who've been in the game for a long time

and their focus, obviously, by the name of their podcast is Get With The Programming, maybe two of the most knowledgeable guys in the space, but very focused on programming. Yeah. And events, right? Yeah. And then, of course, also you have talking elite fitness, which is right. Right. You know, focused on the top of the, that would have been an appropriate

thing for them. Right. Absolutely. Cause they're more of the ESPN style sports center style show. They could do something like this for sure. They have, I think they also do a decent job. You know, community has always been a key component of their podcast. They have a community section. They do cover some of the more political and economics side of CrossFit and its changes over the years. In addition to obviously focusing on the, you know, the leaderboards and the top athletes around the world and at the CrossFit Games. what is the difference? What has to happen to the information? There are a couple of guys obviously in this, in the area who collect a lot of information, a Chad Schroeder being one of them.

What's the difference between having all of that information that he has and all of that knowledge he has, and then converting it to a ranking. I call Chad the record keeper of CrossFit. Like he has taken it upon himself over the last 10 years to create databases that I think are even more comprehensive and easy to use than the CrossFit Games website. But he's the only one who has those. And it's a huge undertaking to do it. There have been others recently who've tried to do something like that.

huge undertaking to do it. There have been others recently who've tried to do something like that. But a good example is if you want to find a list of team members from teams who have competed at the CrossFit Games going back to the beginning, there's only one place to go for it that I know of and it's Chad. That's an extremely difficult thing to track down. And so he has all that information, but he, I don't think has ever really, um, a little bit, he'll participate when I ask him to, in terms of predictions and projections and stuff like that, but more, he's interested in the record keeping side of things. Uh, and the, you know, you know, as you see with some of the articles he's putting out right now for CrossFit and we'll continue to put out over the next month, he's looking

at, um, like the, really the things that stand out or the cool stats and trends in different age divisions with different athletes, et cetera, over time. And, and with more of a historical context than anyone else can offer to, to do something like this is not only, not only requires a tremendous amount of knowledge about the people who are competing in CrossFit, it also is a lot of risk because, and I acknowledge that when I put these out there, you know, I'm doing my best to be aware of athletes all over the world that are potentially trying to compete and make it into the CrossFit games. And it's really hard to do. You know, if you're doing power rankings for the NFL, there's 32 teams and it's a fixed 32 teams. You don't have to be like, Oh, what about this other

team that's coming up over here? And they all also exist in one continent. So it's, it's much easier to track something like that. This is, we're talking about the top of the sport, but the top of the sport expands, expands globally. And there's no reason that someone can emerge next year. Who's been training for five years in silence without ever posting anything and just all of a sudden shows up and is relevant. And, you know, who knows to win a semifinal. It hasn't really happened like that too often, but it definitely could. And I think that even going back to the, when I first, well, I didn't first year,

but when I watched some of the stuff that you made, where Greg was talking about the origins of the CrossFit Games, he would say, great, whatever you're doing over there in your privacy of your training and your gym and your corner of the world, come on over and show us what you got. And let's see if you can stand the test against some of the athletes we've been trained. And that was the idea of the CrossFit Games originally. Do whatever you want to prepare for wherever you are in the world and then show up and do it. So when I'm making this list, of course, there's an opportunity to miss someone that I don't know about or someone that's just only had one or two kind of data points here or there that's taken the last couple of years to improve. But even in doing this, I did make a couple of omissions that I feel pretty

badly about. I acknowledge the one about Caroline Connors. That was just an oversight. And I actually, I did that to her privately earlier in the year because I often have her and Caroline Prevost ranked very similarly. And I just, even though they spell their names differently, I just have like, I just see Caroline there and I thought I had accounted for it and I hadn't. So I appreciate the people who pointed that out. I apologize to her. She reached out and said, thank you. And yeah, she obviously, she should be on this list and she will be on the next one and for the men's the one that i really missed that i shouldn't have missed but it's it is like somewhat understandable because he failed to um submit his quarterfinal scores on time was is a guy named yellow host day out of germany or belgium um and uh he should have been on that list as well and i think people

get a chance to see him compete at the Madrid CrossFit Championships and likely do pretty well there in a week or two. That's exactly what I was going to ask you. Did you get any feedback of any men that were obvious, like oops? Yeah, I made a list here. Oh, of men that were oopses? No, not oopses, but these are guys that either I considered on the list and omitted,

or someone brought to my attention that maybe I wasn't aware of, or what is seemingly going to be the case this year. And there's a lot of people that have raised concerns, sometimes appropriately, sometimes kind of abrasively about it. It seems like a lot of athletes who competed on teams last year are going to compete individually this year. And so, you know, like someone did confirm to me that Luke Parker intends on going individual again this season. And if he's doing that, it makes me wonder, is Angelo also?

And I did include Angelo on the list. But there's no such suggestion that Rich is going individual, but there is for Samuel Cornway. And it's really difficult to kind of know this early in the season. But in terms of some of the women, because I did take your advice from last week and I put it out about 10 hours earlier than I did last time. And so I've already gotten some feedback from people about some women who are going individual who were on prominent teams last year that I did not include on this list that definitely would have been included had I known that it is safe to say that the further you get down the list the more noise and less I think the word is fidelity is in the list just because of the nature of the way it works out right I. I mean, it's just like, like it's Tia, probably at the top here and it's Justin at the top with the men and it's, you can do that with

certainty. Whereas you get down, you get down, you get down to, you know, number 60 and there's 30 people who could have that spot. Right. And so, you know, for, for example, you know, I also have, uh, you know, I've, I'm making this list independently. I didn't reach out to anyone beforehand. Some people who I could have reached out to, for example, Mike Halpin or Patrick Clark, have added some comments of athletes that either I considered and left off the list, like I said, or that I had just kind of neglected to consider in trying to assess for all of the women that are relevant in CrossFit.

But I also have a you know a a biased perspective in some regards when i get a chance to go to a semi-final and watch a group of athletes compete over six tests it's a lot easier for me to to make assessments about those athletes and their potential even when compared to when i watch them um compete online you know on a broadcast where I'm not going to get to see all the ways that they move and the flow of their workouts, et cetera. And then of course, there's even, you know, the even harder ones are the ones like Africa and Asia, where there was even limited, more limited coverage than that. And in general, there's less coverage and it's

harder to gather information about athletes in those parts of the world. So I appreciate that people from those parts of the world maybe think that I have a bias based on where I live. I try to eliminate that as best I can. But it's real, but you acknowledge it. Yeah, but it's also, you know, some of the accusations are a little unfounded. Like someone, even Jason Smith himself from Africa was seemingly offended and suggested that I don't even know that CrossFit exists in South Africa because I live in the U.S. is what he wrote there. And I reached out to him to talk to him about that. But of course, I know that CrossFit exists in South Africa. You know, I covered the Fittest in Cape Town when they had

a sanctional there. I worked with the organizers. I spoke with, actually, I organized the bottom line this year that Lauren Clill did a thing with this girl named Zoe, who I met on Instagram and was able to link up with them so we could have some coverage from someone live in Africa about that event. I know who Jason Smith is, of course. I know his accomplishments. I recognize he was in the top 26, I think, last year at the games. He didn't make it this year. I've ranked Keelan Henry fairly low on the list for the men. I think that he was really, it was unfortunate we didn't get it this year. I've ranked Keelan Henry fairly low on the list for the men. I think that he was really it was unfortunate we didn't get to see his full potential at the games.

He's probably better than most people think, actually. But outside of Jason Smith, no man from Africa has ever made an influence on a really critical event at the CrossFit Games. So I would consider that when I'm placing or ranking them relative to the rest of the world until they're able to do more significant performances at some of these high-level competitions. fit in South Africa is because that's where we had the confusion with the drug test this year, where the girl was accused of failing the test. And yet her name and athlete number weren't on the test. And it turned into a whole shit show and debacle. It is kind of funny though, that that is, yeah, I'd say funny that that is the biggest story that comes out of Africa is a botched drug test. There's this question, and I wouldn't normally just pick random questions out of the comments, but I think this one's funny too. Sevan, ask Brian why Brian left out the two cholitas who have more experience than the Wellstins.

Twins, the Wells twins. Let me take another shot at that. Sevan asked Brian why Brian left out the two Cholitas who have more experience than the Wells twins. Do you know who this person is talking about? I have no idea, but I used one word instead of two. He said Mexican women, and I said Cholitas. They're so cultured.d yeah i was more effective in my um delivery in my in my language my uses of language one word uh i was an english major i

used one word where uh two wasn't necessary no i know that there's the that girl she was in the um open one year brenda brenda castro i assume dave just pictured because she was mexican racist but um i didn't i don't i don't know i don't know any names out of heritage is that race yes yes Brenda Castro. I assume Dave just pictured her because she was Mexican racist. But I don't know any names. How much of his heritage is that racist? Yes, yes. And it's probably his sister. But I don't know any high-level athletes.

I don't know any high-level athletes south of San Diego. The other one she's probably talking about is Paulina Harrow. And I'm very aware of Paulina. She trains with the Proven Crew, or at least she was last year. I'm not entirely sure what, yeah, those are the two, of course. So I'm not entirely sure what Paulina's plans are. She is competing in a big CrossFit competition in Mexico that I think is taking place this weekend. I think it's called the Black Challenge or the Black Fitness Challenge or something. It's a huge, huge competition in Mexico. She's probably one of the competition in Mexico. Uh, she was, she's probably one of the favorites there. She was also doing some weightlifting. I think she

competed, uh, has competed in weightlifting at a high level. Um, very good. Uh, and I wasn't sure if that was something that she was shifting her focus more towards. Yeah. You could have it. You could include, uh, probably Paulina more than Brenda at this point. I haven't seen Brenda do much significantly recently. Um, there are some other girls. Uh, I think I more than Brenda at this point. I haven't seen Brenda do much significantly recently. Um, there are some other girls. Uh, I think I need a Parvati Leah Schmidt from Mexico that I'm aware of, but I'm just, I just don't know that they're good enough to be on this list. Fair.

I have a drum roll sound effect here. Hold on. Not that one. Sorry. No, sorry. Oh, okay. Maybe I'll use that one. Uh, uh. Oh, okay. Maybe I'll use that one. Okay, here we go.

What did the Mexican say when his homework blew out the window? Can't wait to find out. Come back here, essay. Totally off subject. No no more a racist joke sorry that's my i've reached my threshold for that for the show what's going on here amanda barnhart uh is she leaving crossfit competition or is she just done with boston not sure uh she's definitely definitely you know it's announced there that they're moving back home, which I don't think is necessarily that surprising. You know, we've, we've seen this before where athletes move for a period of time and then go back to where they came from.

Obviously Katrin did that. Sam quant did that. And now Amanda Barnhart did that. And those are all three people who were in the Boston area training at the comp train facility that are in New England and went back home. And I think that, um, what's, it's not so surprising that she's necessarily doing that. The trend of athletes who've gone there and then left there to go back where they came from in recent, like over the last year or two is something that people are certainly taking note of. I don't really have any, any insight or information to offer in that regard, but if we're just

taking an individual case basis, um, I'm, I'm not that surprised. I didn't think, uh, you know, one, one or two things is going to happen. If you try something like that with the family, you're either going to move there and find that you fit in great and then stay and probably stay there for a long time, or you give it a fair shot. And then you'd be like, I think I was, we were more happy overall with every element of our life back where we were previously. And so we'll move back home. Two years. I mean, catch one was there a long time and two years is a great run there. Yeah.

I mean, I think it's unfound. Some of the shit people say about Ben Bergeron. No, no one's like, and not a lot of people do. I don't mean to suggest a lot of people do, but I know, I know it's kind of fun to, for some people to pick on them and i don't see they pick on them but i it always seems vapid to me like there's no they're there like dude great athletes are going to him for a fucking reason yeah and we'll see if they continue to or if that's something that he continues to want to do um you know it's uh it's always kind of been this question when you

when you see these coaches these high level coaches coaches, is there, you know, is there, what is the difference between someone who can take an athlete from wherever they are and bring them to the, you know, and wherever they are, meaning outside of a games qualification or not necessarily relevant on a global scale of competitive CrossFit to being recognizable and relevant at the CrossFit games, or to take someone who's already had some success in the sport and is kind of well-known, but is obviously seeking to improve that and then bring them from a 20th place to a top five finish at the Games or something along those lines. And it's similar with business, right? And people talked about this a lot when Glassman sold the company and Eric Rosa came into the picture of,

well, it's one thing to bring a company from zero to a million or zero to 10 million, but what do you, what do you, what does it take a different type of owner or leader or coach to go from 10 million to a billion or from a billion to 10 billion, like at the different levels of growth, do you need a new leader, a new coach? And I think that that's what, you know, people are always experimenting with in this sport. So Amanda Barnhart was already good. She went to Comtrend. She continued to be pretty good. She had a regression this year on the leaderboard. Is that the reason that she's moving? I don't know. Or did she say two years was, was a good run is a fair shot. We didn't like living in Boston that much. This actually has nothing to do with training and we're going back home um for those of you who don't know who aren't from the united states um boston is a uh psychotic

city i say that with fucking as much objectiveness as i possibly can it's not i'm not saying everyone there is psychotic but it's it's a it's a it's a city with a broken soul. It is a group of very, very lost. If you had to live in either Portland, Oregon. Oh, fuck. Or Boston, Massachusetts. Oh, fuck. Tough pick for you? Dude.

Dude, dude. Should we get to the list? It's bad, people get it's bad it's bad people it's bad and by that i mean there's not a lot of inspirational characters there it's it's not they're they're not hard-working um productive ethical moral people it is a uh it is a bad place and in um and the drugs are the drug problem in both of those cities is running beyond rampant and it's being supported by the government. It's a weird those are they're weird situations, man. And, you know, relative to Mumbai or fucking Somalia. Yeah, maybe it's not so bad. So places and I've been to a lot of fucked up places.

So the Boston is really, really. really oh yeah you think boston's better than new york la san francisco portland god i hope you're right jake because it's bad dude but the people that those are bad people there those are really really nasty uh i mean they're they're just on the fringe of being nazis dude. And I don't use that term. Okay. That nonsense. I'm not ever going to Boston ever again. So you put this list together.

We did the men first, top 100 men. Did you have the men done first? And did you learn? Who did you do first, the men or the women? Men, then women. Okay. And so would you say that the, did you learn anything from doing the top 100 men that you were like, okay, I'm not, I'm not making that mistake again. I'm going to do this different. I'm gonna do the women like this.

Not really. Um, I mentioned it last week that I wasn't sure I'd be able to get to 125 women that I thought were, you know, notable or recognizable enough, but that's not the case at all. In fact, with the comments that people have already provided on my post there, I'm now up to 150 women. I actually have an extra 25 that I've added that I'll consider for the next iteration of this. So there's plenty of women that are competitive in this sport as well. Why did you think that about the women? Well, because there's – I've talked about this frequently, is that there's just – there's less depth in the women's competition than the men's competition, and I'm not necessarily talking about

at the top of the field. I'm talking about outside of games qualifying spots. So I think that, for example, in North American men, when you're qualifying 120 to quarterfinals, almost anyone in the top 500 in men in quarterfinals could be slotted into those last five spots at each semifinal and do just as well as most of those last five guys that got in. Wow. So there's like maybe, you know, 400 guys that it's the margins are just what shows up in the programming. Did I have a good weekend and execution? You know, whatever their training was just, just perfect to get those last spots. Whereas on the women's side, and I'm not obviously not taking anything away from any

of these women, but you're still seeing people like Jen Ryan and Rebecca Voigt Miller who are in their 40s and obviously competitive in that Masters division that are not just qualifying for the Games in North America, but qualifying by like 40 and 50 spots. And so I just I don't see the depth yet in the women's field that I do on the men's field on the fringes. So I wasn't sure how this would go if I started pushing towards a hundred and 125 names, but it turns out that there are, and you know, we can look at the bottom of the list that at least for me, there are plenty of names in that region that are of athletes that I'm excited and curious about for the next couple of years. I, I, I've cracked a lot of jokes about, jokes about the Atlas games and maybe that's a good example. It's a little inappropriate or misplaced because the men's division, and maybe this ties

with what you're saying, the men's division there was a stack division. It was the women's division that was far less competitive, right? And so basically if you say there's 500 men, how many women would you say? I'm well, but basically what I'm saying is that they don't even need 120 quarter final spots. The exception to that was Bailey rail last year, which was a total anomaly in my opinion. I mean, she didn't even make the top one 20 and then they got, she got a backfill and ends up making the top 20 at the games.

I don't think that will ever happen again, personally, but I guess you never know, and maybe she had a... I don't know what happened there, really, but... Yeah. I don't understand what Mr. Watkins from Lawn Chair Leaderboarding says. I did a comparison yesterday.

There are about three guys who are way out of the range at the bottom of everyone else at the games. Do you know what? I don't even know what that means. Yeah. No. Okay. I wish I did, though.

Sometimes he says some smart shit. Often. It's too smart for me and you. It's too smart. You need more words. I will pull up your Instagram, hopefully not show my text messages. Maybe I can make this bigger. Let's just dig in right at the top.

So once again, just really quickly, tell us the power rankings. These are the women that you think are the best in the world right now at crossfit in the order not necessarily that these are the power rankings for the 2022 2023 season and i think that that's where a lot of people's frustrations are misguided so obviously if you're just looking at at what happened last year um daniel brandon could be ahead of hayley adams and emma lawson for example so but and i'm not discounting what daniel brandon could be ahead of hayley adams and emma lawson for example so but and i'm not discounting what daniel brandon did at the games last year in that case i'm saying this is a few like this is a power rankings for the upcoming season so i'm assuming

obviously that they're competing and then if they are competing i'm trying to assess what's their potential and that's based on obviously what they've done, what I think they're going to do or can do, their age, where their training is, how consistently they've been training at that place. Maybe some things that I know through private conversations. Sometimes it's just an inference or a gut feeling, you know, with some of the athletes that I don't have as much information about, but this is a forward looking power rankings. So, you know, uh, kind of, not that it's a great comparison, but like after the March madness tournament, NCAA, a lot of the seniors graduate. And so the makeup of the teams changes. Well, in some of these cases, the makeup of the athletes, competitive environment changes year to

year. And it's really hard to account for all of those changes. I think Patrick Clark, for example, mentioned that I had someone included someone on the list that was recently pregnant or something like that. Well, obviously, I didn't know that. And that would completely change my assessment of of her on this list. So those types of things. the one that stands out to me the most and based on what you just said on your evaluation is number five Emma Lawson if this is supposed to be more than what you rank on more than just last year's finish of the games if you want to know how people are ranked by finishing the games just go click over to the game site and if these are the rankings you want to know how people are ranked by finishing the games, just go click over to the game site. And if these are the rankings you want, then here they are.

These are the fittest people in the world by order. Tia, Mallory, O'Brien, Laura Horvath, Daniel Brandon, Brooke Wells, Emma Loss. But if you want a more comprehensive look based on a full season of water paloozas and Dubais and previous competition experience and someone to evaluate on Adrian's programming programming versus dave's this is the list right yeah then how the fuck does emma lawson break the top 10 she thinks she should be outside the top 10 i i i don't i'm sorry i don't know i don't know how to evaluate her she doesn't even seem she doesn't even seem real to me how the fuck did she do what she did i don't even i can even get my head wrapped around it. Well, so this is the thing we were talking about, Emma,

obviously prior to the games as well. And we had some sample sizes. And she came from Atlas, right? Yeah. You have all places to come. We had known that she had dominated in the teenage division. And sometimes people would say, well, dominating the teenage division doesn't translate to doing well in the individual competition. But in the case of the women, it does.

We saw Hayley Adams transition from the individual competition as a teenager or from the teenage to individual very well. We saw Mel O'Brien do that. We saw Emma Carey do that. And now we've seen Emma Lawson do that. And we'll get to Olivia Kirstetter on this list on the next slide. we've seen Emma Lawson do that. And we'll get to Olivia Kirstetter on this list on the next slide. And so there is a noticeable trend now of the female teenage winners in recent years being able to almost seamlessly transition into relevance in the individual competition, which is incredibly impressive and something that I don't think you can ignore.

The second data point that we have for her was at Dubai last year. And I talked about how that Dubai field wasn't the strongest ever on the women's side. She did finish in the top 10. She did beat Turi Helga daughter there. She also lost to several women that she ended up beating at the games this year, but that was really her first time putting her foot out there and taking a live competition, competitive experience at a high level with a lot of money on the line against the top tier of women, individual open women's field. She did okay. Then we saw her compete at semifinals. And I talked about that. Yes, that semifinal wasn't great outside of her. Not a single one of the analysts coming into the CrossFit Games even considered ranking any of those other four qualifying

athletes in the top 20. None of them finished in the top 20. I think Prevo was next best at 23. So it wasn't a great field for her to test her merit against. She dominated and that's great. And if you're one of the best in the world, you should dominate against a field that's not super competitive. And she did. But the thing I was still waiting to see was what's going to happen when she shows up on the floor and she looks to her left and she looks to her right and she sees Tia and Cara and Laura and Gabby and Haley and Danielle and Amanda and Christy and all, you know, and Mal and all these women that have already proven themselves over and over again in some cases. And everyone got to see what happened was that she ascended right towards the top, actually to the top pretty early on in the competition. And then she stayed

there for a majority of the competition. And so I think, and I will, I will, I can talk about a little bit more specifically how I decided to filter through spots five through 10, I guess, or five through maybe 12 or 14. But in general, Emma Lawson, to me, showed that she belongs in the last heat at the, at the games with the best woman in the world this year. And I don't think that that was a mistake where did where did page powers finish at the games this year 25th and uh and where where is she on your list uh she's 36th okay so the just some points for some people follow along with me here this logic people so emma lawson my in my memory she dominated the atlas games but when you actually look at the scoreboard she only won by eight points now she shows up at the games and gives us another data point and fucking hung

with the best in the world and outperformed that person should be by eight points by 19 spots right okay so so so worth uh at least worth uh being aware of i apologize guys my um my cadre of superstar helpers is uh not here i'm stuck doing the talking and the um fingering i'm not a good finger and talker I'm not a good finger and talker. Just one or the other. Would it make a good show if we looked at all the events this year at the CrossFit Games and tried to predict how Annie Thor's daughter would have done? Have you considered that?

Would she have taken the podium this year at the CrossFit Games? Yeah, I think it would be fun to do for sure. Hard to say. I think she would have been in the mix, though. Like really in the mix, right? Well, yeah. I mean, if she comes back to individual competition next year, I put her fourth. And I think that there's, you know, I don't know what she's going to do for sure.

I've heard kind of, you know, people are asking, how can you annie on this list and not rich well it's pretty obvious and it competed as individual last year there's been rumors that she might this year rich hasn't competed as an individual since 2014 and the only person spreading rumors that he might this year is only doing it for his own publicity and stunts on youtube and he's wearing a red shirt and glasses and has his hair slicked back with a microphone in front of his face. I have no idea what you're talking about. If you look at Adrian's programming from the games this year and then you look at these top ten, maybe this isn't even a fair question to ask, but you have to say that it suits Annie better than all of these, right?

Or at least as good as anyone else. I think that what Adrian's programming proved most this year is that when you're one of the fittest, the test is not that relevant. And for the, and there were certainly a few athletes that were exposed that we could have a more deep conversation about that, but I don't think Annie is one of them. I think she would have been able to navigate the programming just fine. And that her likely finishes would have been in the range of two to seven. And if you, if you saw this list,

what, what stands out at you? Can, can you away from being brian friend and look at this top 10 tia to me malo brian laura horvat annie thor's daughter emma lawson hayley adams daniel brandon brooke wells carl saunders and gabriella magawa if you step away which one stands out to you the most that like wow i can't believe they're in the top 10 oh that they're in the top 10. Oh, that they're in the top 10? Yeah. None? None. I'm not surprised. I wouldn't be surprised to see any of these in the top 10.

None of these make you sweat? You don't look at Emma Lawson there and be like, oh, shit. I can't believe I stuck her there, and now the whole world's looking. No. I sat here for like 10 or 15 minutes and just thought about it, and I was like, nope. From everything I've seen, I feel very comfortable putting her there. I was going through your comments and someone was saying, how could you put Haley Adams ahead of Daniel Brandon? Is it, is it an easy choice for you?

No, I would say so on this, what you asked me was not what I thought you were going to ask. When I look at this list, the biggest questions I have are the biggest questions that a lot of the people in the comments had is how did you decide to put Mal ahead of Laura? Some people were surprised by that because of what I did with Vellner, putting him ahead of Ricky and kind of leaning on the longevity over the one time phenom type, you know, to put it simply. And I did in my original iteration of this, I did have Laura second and Mal third, but I went back and watched a few events and tried to watch as much of Mal as I could. And then I just remembered the times I have got to compete her or see her compete live and in person. And I just, I really think that she's, I guess when you're just talking about her compared to Laura, I think that she's too well-rounded and has shown the capacity already earlier in her career to improve her weaknesses at a higher rate than most of the other athletes that she's competing with for these top spots.

rate than most of the other athletes that she's competing with for these top spots and i think she's going to be uh if tia competes tia will still be very very difficult to impossible to beat but outside of that i think mal if you're looking in the women's field is the next person that i would be putting on my list as someone you're going to have to beat if you want to get a top one or two spot mal i suggest mallory o'brien will be significantly and i don't use that word lightly better when we see her in 2023 than 2022 which is scary like she's on she's on the ascension right yeah and that's actually an amazing distinction so when when if you're thinking about this list and you're saying this doesn't make sense how can you put this person 10 spots higher than this person? This person made the games and this person didn't think about it in that, in that regard, you know,

what's their, yes, what they've done is great, but what's their ceiling. What's their potential. What's the opportunity for them to make a small, big, or gigantic step forward. Or in some of the cases, some of these women that have been doing really well are late in their career. So even, you know, nothing against Ariel Loewen or Jacqueline Dahlstrom or Emma McQuaid. They're incredible. It's been so fun to watch them at 28, 29, 30, 31 years old, come into excellence in the sport and excel for a couple of years. But when you have so many women on this list that are 26 down to 17 or 16 years old, even that are just coming in waves at this point, it's like, how long can that 29, 30 and 31 year old athlete hold on to a 10th place, 12th place, 15th place finish at the games?

Or are these women just going to start making leaps and bounds past them as Mal O'Brien's done, as Emma Lawson's done, as Emma Carey might do, as Alexis Raptus has done. Haley Adams is still young. Gabby's still young. Laura's still young. Danielle's still young. Like it's just, if you're 30 going on 31, going on 32, and you're looking at this, that's, that's what I'm trying to ask. Are those women in a position to make a big step forward to keep up with the young women that are coming? Or is it likely that even if they're getting a little bit fitter, that their rankings might slide a little bit down as more and more new women emerge into this tier of conversation? If you had to put these women in three categories, ascending, homeostasis or decline you know someone who's the middle one homeostasis being just like like when i think of someone like annie i just think man how can she get any better

she's been doing i mean even tia how can she get any better and then and then you think of other people you know brooke wells who went through an injury and you might think or laura horvat like i'm guessing that there's a significant emotional toll on laura horvat just the um the years of effort in the defeat um not defeat but not not not climbing um maybe there's that toll on all of them because T is at that top. Maybe they're all, they all have a little bit of PTSD. Maybe. I mean, it's a,

it is a great, maybe like a psychoanalysis type of a conversation of what's it like to compete when you're your aspirations, you know, Laura Horvath, for example, has been very clear. She wants to win the CrossFit games.

And she's obviously super aware of the fact that T is out there and that she's been unable to beat her in any format. Um, you know, and I'm, and, and surely every year after the games, Laura goes back home and sits down with her team or her coaches or herself. And she thinks about, okay, what do I have to do next year to get better so that I can beat this woman? And how many years of trying to do that and coming up short it's not a failure but it's it is coming up short of what she wants to achieve in the sport um can you just keep going back to the to the drawing board and and you know lifting weights i think ben i think ben believes that laura can beat to you too so i think she's in good company well and that's the psychoanalytical piece of it is you know you have to have that belief, I think. Otherwise, it's a really difficult thing to get up and go to the gym, you know, four to eight hours a day, five or six days a week, 50 weeks in a row to try to do it again.

Do you see anyone on this top 10 list who you think their career is in decline? Like 2022 was the best they'll ever be they'll never be better than that well look i don't know if i i don't mean by placement i mean in their capacity um you know you'd be looking at some people that are older probably annie and cara uh i i think i'll be i don't know i don't i think that this fifth place finished by Brooke Wells could be the, you know, obviously she did in 2020 also could be the best that she ever does. But no Mal, Laura, Emma, Haley, Danielle, Gabby, I think are all still getting better.

Brooke Wells, 27. And what about Tia? Is there, is there a chance that we just saw the, the, the 2021 was the best Tia Toomey we'll ever see? 2022, there's a little bit off, and 2023 we'll see. I think most people would argue that 2021 was not the best Tia that we've ever seen. I think she regressed in terms of points a little bit relative to the field. The whole thing with Tia and her potential retirement or not and the final event and all that stuff is very confusing and kind of sad and disheartening to me.

I don't know what's going on there. I love it. Well, whatever. Well, I think she could have won that workout, and she just kind of waltzed her way through it. And if it was going to be. Oh, you mean you're talking about the final workout? I'm talking about the final workout and everything that happened after it.

Okay. It was just, it seems really weird and unnecessary. It's like, you know, if you're not sure if you're going to retire or not, then just compete. Just compete. And I would say that to all the athletes. If you're not sure about if you're going to retire or not, just compete. When you're sure that you're done, tell the world. I dig.

But, I mean, can you ever be sure? Then don't say anything. Right. Anyway, Tia, this year at the game. Like Fraser did to me when we had that podcast together he wasn't sure if he was going to come back on him for four months he didn't he didn't tell me whether we were doing the podcast just don't say anything just go just ghost everybody i'm okay with ghosting too fuck it all right i feel you i wish I had to you some of Tia's problems I don't look here's the thing um she

was asked on the floor by Nikki are you are we gonna see you next year and she said we'll see I'm okay with that answer what I'm not isn't isn't that no she even answered but she said uh now that's the question great whatever but I'm okay with that and leave people in suspense but don't tell everyone that you're going to retire. So they make all these plans and everyone's kind of waiting and they're like, okay, she's going to do it.

She's going to do it. She's going to, she's going to do it. Right. And then she doesn't do it. And you're like, well, why'd you tell us you're going to do it?

If you weren't going to do it. I'm okay with people ghosting me. I'm not okay with me ghosting people. That's not, that's a, I'm totally okay with you ghosting me. I'm not okay with me ghosting people. I'm totally okay with you ghosting me. Ghost away. From here, we are going to shoot down all the way to what we affectionately call the crumbs, the dust. Is there a superstar in the mix down here that everyone should be like holy shit uh you have some dead soldiers down here like sam briggs uh you have some uh instagram um uh clickbait uh gals

like uh i think uh michelle bassinet that's girl from South Africa, right? That takes the pictures with Danny Spiegel. And who is the team captain of the demo team this year? Miss Scuds? Yep. Also on this list. You have some legends that have vanished into the landscape of Hawaii, like China Cho. Man, I've seen that name before. Jordan Adcock. i just assumed that was a dude i never knew that let me ask you this someone actually said this in the comment are there any men in your list in the 125 that you know of what best of best women are there any men in your list is there anyone with a penis in the list i don't know not that i know

uh allison scuds you think allison's gonna make another oh this girl amy kringle do you know she lives on the isle of man i started following her i i need to figure out she didn't follow me so it makes me think it's gonna be hard to get her on the show but i want to interview her i want to know what it's like to live there i'll tell you this so i made a uh like i said i've i've added about or i've added 25 names to this spreadsheet that I have that I'll consider for next time. You mean that we can't, you mean that we can't see on this post? Correct. Okay. Uh, the, and risk, you know, as a result of the comments that some people have added, some of the women I don't know a lot about, and I want to learn more about them.

Others I didn't consider for various reasons, some of which were because they've been on teams their whole career and now it appears that they might compete individually. So we'll see. But if that's in fact the case, a majority of this 25 will probably disappear in the next iteration because I think some of the other women that are being mentioned or talked about or might switch to individual competition are better or have more potential than some of these, like you said, that are maybe a little bit older or have been trying for a while and coming up short.

Well, what about, do you have any information on China Cho or Sam Briggs that would give you like, yes, they're going to make another run at it? No, but I also have Annetta Tucker on this list. She was second in the women 35-39 and I have Amelia Lepinen, I think in the 80s, somewhere on this list, who won the 35-39 division. I did include a couple of the 35-39 men as well. I just think they're still

potentially relevant if they were to compete and i don't necessarily know if they will or won't uh is is andrea this is a good question wyatt be gay says is andrea is andrea nissler on the list did she make your top 25 no a lot of people were upset that andrea and taylor williamson were not on the list uh i have prior to making this list had no reason to believe that they would be competing as individuals and if there's no chance of in my mind of them competing as an individual i'm not going to waste a spot on on them in this list yeah fair enough and if they decide if they if they state that they are going to compete individually they will immediately find a spot on the list they don't even have to say they're

going to they can say they're thinking about it. That would get them on. Sure. Okay. They don't have to commit. They can waffle back and forth. You might get, we might slam you on the show. Andrea probably would probably be slammed on the show.

I'd have to think about Andrea a little bit, but she, she could be somewhere, you know, maybe in the, even in the twenties to thirties on this. Wow. Wow. Taylor would probably be significantly lower. 70s or 80s. Wow.

Ouch. Will Chloe Wilson make the games? Is there anybody on this Sevan can beat in a workout? You asshole. I would say of the 125 people on the list, there's probably like 75 that he could beat on a workout. Maybe even 100 that he could beat on certain workouts. Wow.

Wow. I'd like to – tell me later what those workouts are. They involve L-sit strict ring muscle-ups. Ah, I approve. You know, yesterday I carried – for a workout, I walked to uh pavilions that's a store in southern california it's about a mile from where i'm staying and i bought two 12 packs of topo chico that's the sparkling water from uh mexico i don't actually know if it's from mexico but um and i carried them back two 12 packs of and their bottles what bareacks and then they're bottles. Barefoot. And then the last half a mile is in the sand.

That was my workout yesterday. Great workout. Thank you. What was the limiting factor for you, the traps or the grip? The grip ended up being the limiting factor. You know what's crazy too is I'm right-handed, but I was able to – if I carry like this under my arm my left arm could carry a 12-pack easy my right arm not so good i don't know why

and just being little if i was a bigger man i could have uh like gotten more purchase on the 12 packs carry but a lot of people talk shit to me like thinking that they were it was alcohol in there like guys riding by on bikes like oh good Oh, good day. Oh, you're going to go get drunk. I'm like, motherfucker. It's water. Uh, okay.

As we climb up the list, top 100 holding down the bottom, Trista Smith. Uh, I don't recognize a single name from 86 to 100, but if I want to dive in the one that stands out the most to me is Yuko Sakuyama. Where's she from? Japan. Okay. So Svetlana right above her, and then also Aizan Zerzova and Alexander Buzanova are all from Asia. Yuko competed this year. The other three did not

compete in the individual competition at semifinals, but I think would have been in the mix to possibly take one of the two spots. Both of the women who did make it from Asia made the top 30 this year, Sun Yang Choi and Seher Kaya. And I, you know, these ones are just, uh, like if they had, if they had made the games and done as well as them, obviously they could be significantly higher. Um, but not having had a chance to see them really compete in elite level competitions outside of Asia. Yet I want to acknowledge that I think that they have that potential, but I don't really know how to put them very much higher until I see them do

something like that. Jeffrey ruining my day. Topo Chico sourced and bottled in Mexico, but owned by Coca-Cola. Fuck me. Has a Japanese woman ever made it or Japanese man? Outside of 2019? No, no.

No. Wow. Well, does she speak English? Does she live in Japan? I don't know. Okay. Has an Armenian ever made it to the games? Outside of that same year, I don't think so. But I actually think the guy who did make it from Armenia that year was a cool dude.

I don't think Armenia had a guy that year, to be honest. Because I don't think there's a CrossFit gym in Armenia. I think they did, and I think his last name was Belovicious. Maybe someone can check. Okay. Armin Belovicious or something like that. Armin, that's good. If I put that out, I've got to check.

That would be amazing if I got that right somehow. Choi and Danny Spiegel most improved returning from 2021 CrossFit Games athletes. Who's Choi? Arminas Belovicius. I think he's from there. Someone can maybe fact check me on that. But he is a guy who competed and got 43rd at the CrossFit Games in 2019. What did you ask?

Thank you, by the way, for doing that. That was kind. Choi and Danny Spiegel most improved. Is Watkins saying that from 2021 the most improved athletes in 2022 who's choi young choi oh she was awesome and honestly it's been fun to watch her both of the last two years uh she gives me hope for the you know for the the women from asia that they're they're are ascending and getting into a level of competition. That's relevant with some of the women from more established continents. Jessica Collegan.

Yeah. I think she was on a team, right? Yeah. She was on mayhem justice. She barely missed making semifinals last year. And I think this year also possibly if she did a individual quarterfinals, she was like one 30,

one 40 in North America. If you're one 30 or or 140 in North American women, I am not considering you for this list. And she might be an imposter. I don't, I've looked at her very closely. I've studied her. An imposter. And I just always see.

I don't know what that means, but I know that she is. She's IAN. She's IAN. But I don't see, I don't see any Armenian in her. I don't, I just, I, she in her. I just say she's not. Married into the family, maybe. Nah, I think she's claiming like a mom or a dad. Number 84 stands out to me.

She was the original, I think people called her the muscle hamster, Tori Dyson, a tiny woman, maybe 4'11". Fuck, who knows? But Catherine David's daughter uh her training partner over at comp train for years and years and years uh really upbeat cool chick a couple times i've hung out with her really upbeat tons of energy yep but i think her career is in decline she's been around forever right yeah still you know still is uh competing or trying to compete it seems but you know yes you know if she probably if she doesn't over the next year or two she would you know

disappear from this list altogether unless she you know she shows tremendous improvement uh julia cato has an asterisk by her name. What would that mean? And for those of you who don't know the controversy between Julia Cato was, is that she was misrepresented on the seven podcast and we were ashamed of ourselves and we apologize greatly. Um, and Brian, um, and her, uh, cleared the air at the games. Why does she have an asterisk by her name and how can you go to the CrossFit games and then be 79 on this list? Victoria compost one spot ahead of her also has an asterisk there.

That just means that in the bottom half of the list, the asterisks are for athletes who competed at the Games this year. In the top half of the list, the top 50, the asterisks are for women who did not compete at the Games as an individual this season. And there are more of them up there than back there. I mean, look, Victoria Campos, Julia Cato. Here's the thing about the women from South America. Brian doesn't respect them.

I think that there are a lot of them who have been making pushes towards being relevant in high-level competitions recently. They generally do better online than in in-person competitions. There's a number of different reasons why that could be. There've always been athletes like that from all over the world. Um, I didn't see anything that blew me away from either one of them at the games this year. They finished towards the bottom of the group. They never really seemed to be making any, uh, they didn't do anything competitively that suggests to me that they have potential to get any higher than that. And I think that if it wasn't a guaranteed spot from South America, that it would be very unlikely that any women from South America would qualify via live competition for the CrossFit Games.

Vicaria Campos finished 33rd, just below Freya Moose-Bruger and Solvig Sigurdsdottir, and all the way down here at the bottom, 37th, was Julia Cato. And, yeah, that's not so good. Is Emily Rolfe the only female that pulled from the games this year? Only two withdraws this year. Emily Rolfe for the women, Keelan Henry for the men. Okay. That's good, right? Keelan was injured before the start of the competition,

and Emily had a traumatic thing happen during the first event. Keelan gave it a go as long as he could. But, yeah, overall, a very durable games field relative to other years. Do you think that that says something about the programming, that it maybe wasn't hard enough? I mean, it's a professional event. People should be pulling out. It's a fucking...

It's tip of the spear shit. Adrian's talked about this in some interviews, I think maybe even in the 2021 documentary that he's trying to find that balance between pushing them hard enough,

but also giving them a chance to recover adequately and show what they can do. I think that they rode the line pretty well this year. I mean, the Capitol was a very debilitating event for many athletes and, uh, Heidi's brilliant. Certainly some of the athletes were, I think, diminished in their, in their execution or ability to perform over the rest of the competition because of what the capital workout did to them. Oh, you mean beyond that? You think that fucking like in a video game took some shit off them that they couldn't get back? Yeah, similar to Murph in 2015. I think there were certain athletes that never really recovered to their potential the rest of the weekend

some of them it only affected them for an event or two and once they were able to finish that day go home get things back in order come back the next day i think they were kind of back in it but some of them i'm not sure they ever fully recovered from it uh heidi with the sassy and ever brilliant comments it wasn't hard enough to injure people? Question mark? Bitch. Liz R. I'm not going to take the podcast.

Liz R. Savon, you should know people don't like to pull out in the U.S. Yeah, why would you when you can just fucking 12 weeks later kill the baby? Depends what state. You're right. Easy schmeasy. 74, Lauren Fisher. Go.

I'm not going to say anything. Go. Why is she on this list? Do you have any insight into if she's ever going to be ever again? I included all of the members from CrossFit Reykjavik. I have no confirmation if they're bringing a team back or not next year or not, but I was under the impression this is kind of like a one-year thing. I think that there's a good chance that they'll all compete individually this year.

And if they don't, then I'll take them off the list. And Sasha Nevis, she was on Mayhem Independent. Super Olympic lifter, right? Yeah, go ahead. From Argentina. Yeah, she competed with Angelo and Luke and Alexis. So I have her here, you know, basically in the group with the top women from South America. Look at number 71. I've been looking at these names, Gemma Hawk. Is that how you pronounce her name? i've been looking at these names gemma hawk is that how you pronounce her name not sure probably it's a soft g or it's a gemma or or hemma is one of those two it's probably gemma she's from australia oh no shit okay um hey uh caleb am i abandoning ship you got this Want me to fuck off? I can't tell. I saw Caleb just pop up in the control room. What country is she from?

Gemma Hawk? Gemma? Oh, you said that. Okay. When I see the word hawk, I think of like hawk-a-loogie. That's nice. I'm sure she appreciates that. I don't think she does.

Ella Wunger. Wunger, i think it's more like a german pronunciation but i think she's swedish yep uh competes in europe um she's like kind of been on the fringe of maybe making a leap forward and being more competitive towards the top of the european women but has yet to do so meredith swindle this girl do so. Meredith Swindle. This girl's last name is Swindle. There are a bunch of women here in this. Buds, Elena Buds. Having fun.

I just can't believe these names. Porter. These are all drugs and alcohol and like in Fisher. It's just, it's a trip, these names. And I'm starting to recognize these people, Brian. You'd be proud of me. I I'm I number 77. How do I know her for sure?

I heard her name during this, in the semifinals. A bunch of the women here, Hattie Cano, Gabby McClelland, Taylor Reber, Lindsay Porter, Meredith Swindell, Elena Buds are they're, they're all competing in North America. So one of the North American semifinals, some of them had some semifinals some of them had some good events some of them like lindsey porter and no finished 10th at the mac so they were like pushing into or towards the top 10 and and they're a little bit younger a lot of them a little bit less experienced and in my mind a little bit more potential

than some other athletes so this is actually a great to see the dichotomy between a Tori Dyson, who's been in this realm for several years, and she's kind of like hanging on, and then some of these younger girls who are just emerging into this realm of top 10 semifinal in North America echelon and maybe getting ready to push a little bit higher up in the upcoming seasons. Yeah, Mark, I know.

That's what I was thinking too. Holy shit. higher up in an upcoming seasons yeah mark i know that's what i was thinking too holy shit uh stefan doesn't know anything about these women so he just goes with talking about their names correct that's that's correct not just i mean i like i've always been kind of a names come i can't make this 61 through 70 the olivia sulik and i don't uh and alicia oh alisa fuliano so that's the uh girl with the arthritis or the asthma or some shit that everyone was celebrating right that she's the like the computer graphics designer yeah took 35th at the games and still yet you have her with 296 points and yet still you have her ranked 62nd here you so you don't think she's ever coming back to the crossfit games i would not be surprised if this was the only year she qualifies for the games, but sometimes I'm proven wrong.

Anyone else on here that you would like to mention before I climb into it? Jordan Schweck there in 67, very young. Olivia Sulek, very young. If you're looking for women that are young up and coming in North America, you maybe don't know as much about. Olivia did compete as a teenager. I'm not sure about Jordan, but both of them had some impressive performances this past season

and could it certainly improve this year? Let's see if there's anything I need to read. Ashley Shoemaker, wife of Micah Shoemaker, hosts the Brute podcast. She competed at the Granite Games and actually did quite well. I was impressed with her, so she's up here on the list. The Granite Games and actually did quite well. I was impressed with her. She's up here on the list. The Granite Games women in general in North America was a pretty deep and impressive field. That

guy has a podcast, right? I think I talked about it before. What's his name again? His name is Micah. I'm trying to place him. I think I listened place him i'm sure i think i listened to his podcast he did the one you probably listened to is him with danielle right after she she left underdogs yes yes yes yes okay uh i think i'm starting to understand the power rankings says mohania yeah i'm not starting to understand them, but I'm glad that you are. It gives me hope.

Will Branstad or Connors? Emily Rolfe competed at the Games. Is that just down to the fact she did one event? I put it. So she's, what are we at? We're like 30, around 30th on the list. And I put an asterisk by her name to indicate that she didn't compete at the Games because she basically didn't. Yeah, she made the Games.

She did one event. She had to withdraw and it was too bad. Oh, I don't think that's right. The graphics guy asked me about that, and I said, yeah, keep it with an asterisk. I'll take the heat for it. If people want to get mad about it, great. Okay, let's give Brian some heat for it.

2023 power rankings, women. Women were now breaking, getting close to the top 50, 51 through 60. I don't recognize anybody in the no man's land. Kelly Stone, kind of like a last chance qualifier in North America. Bailey Rogers up and coming to Australia. Shelby Neal, if she could do a legless rope climb, would have made the games this year. Laura Clifton did make the games last year from Oceana. Oiana Moyes, good woman from Spain.

She would have been top 10 in Guadalupe, if not for an injury in the Saturday night event there. Taylor Howe was last chance qualifier out of Europe last year. Mary Robin really surprised me this year. I think she finished 10th at one of the European semifinals. Marnie Sykes and Madeline Schelling are from New Zealand and competed on a team this year with Ben Fowler and Luke Fowler. But if they do compete individual again next year, they're probably top 10 in Oceania.

And Emily DeRoy is a really young girl in Oceania. In fact, in this range of 51 to 75, I had six women from Oceania ranked. And that's behind women like Madeline Sturt, Jamie Simmons, Ellie Turner, Cara Saunders, and Tia Claire Toomey, which really just speaks to the depth of the up-and-coming women in that region. And one of the reasons why I'm hopeful that there is an opportunity for them to get more people to the games eventually, if they prove that they're good enough on the competition floor.

That was fucking impressive. You said Shelby Neal didn't make it to the games because she couldn't do rope climb? Yeah. Who the fuck is her coach? I'm not sure, but if you go to the semifinals in the MAAC, they need to be flogged. Oh, wow.

That's what we're talking about now? Flogging? Isn't that where you hit the bottom of someone's feet with the belt? I don't know what flogging is. Listen to this, Sevan. She was seventh at that semifinal. These were her event finishes. Fifth, third, fifth, fourth, fifth, 30th out of 30.

And she missed the games by nine points. How old is she? Fifth, third, fifth, fourth, fifth, 30th. And she missed the game by nine points. How old is she? Fifth, third, fifth, fourth, fifth, thirtieth. And she missed the game by nine points. The people that beat her by eight points, Kelly Clark, who missed the games by one spot. Rebecca Fusile, who made the games by one point. And Brooke Wells, who beat her by only ten points. So, yeah, if Shelby Neal could do a legless rope climb, she would be at the games this year.

She would be higher on this list, probably. And everyone would know who she is. But she she couldn't and so she didn't make it and that's happened to people in the past as well shelby neal is coached by whitney um gellan um how how um how old is that girl shelby neal she's not that old but i think she's in the army or one of the armed forces and she may not compete again this year as she pursues the next level of her career in that regard. All right. So we'll see. But I wanted to include her on the list, even though I'm not certain about her competition this year.

But again, if it turns out that she's not, obviously we'll take her off the list for this season. But for the time being, she has a ton of potential. Obviously, you have five top five finishes at one of the semifinals in North America. But you couldn't make the games because you couldn't do one thing. It's reminiscent of Sam Briggs in 2014 or Catherine Davis daughter in 2013. Yeah. And, and it could have been,

um, uh, Colton Merton story too. Could have been. Yes. There's yes. I, yeah,

it could have been. That's right. Uh, 2023 power rankings, uh, break into the top 50 here. Can you hear that motorcycle outside my window? I heard something. 41 through 50, Solvig, Sigurdsdottir, Christine Kohlenbrander.

Oh, so now we're seeing the names that I recognize Freya Moosbrugger Rebecca Fusliay Kelly Clark do you think Rebecca Fusliay we're going to see her at the games again sorry I have to close this door sorry Rebecca Fusliay at the games again this year

probably well I guess I'll just wait for him to come back Fusliay you think we're going to see her at the games again I almost answered without you there and then I was like I'll just wait for him to come back fusli i think we're gonna see her at the games again i almost answered without you there and then i was like i'll just wait for him because otherwise what's the point um i if i had to make a bet right now i bet she does not make the games this upcoming season ever again is it a complete fucking outlier that someone like her made the games with just with her physique i didn't think she would make the games going into the final event because I didn't think that she would be able to handle the weightlifting in the final

event at the Mac. And she handled it really, really well. I was, to me, it was the most impressive thing from her that weekend. And that's how she ended up going to the games. But like I said,

you know, you, you got, you got him by one point and because someone else there couldn't, like, had their one biggest weakness totally exposed, they got no points for one of the five workouts. And still, you barely get in. She obviously could get better this year. I know she did make the top 30. But overall, it wasn't, like, super impressive.

I'm showing at the games. There's always a lot of turnover in the bottom 15. So I think that, yeah, it could be another story of a one and done. 30th, right by Sidney McElishan, which I would guess you do think is going to go to the games again. Yes. Interesting. How am I pronouncing her name wrong?

Rebecca. Rebecca. You got it. Rebecca. Rebecca Fuselier. yes interesting oh how am i pronouncing her name wrong rebecca rebecca rebecca you got it rebecca rebecca fusliay fusile three syllables fusile fusile rebecca fusile you did get the first name right i'll give you some samuel cornway samuel samuel uh okay back over here to uh but there's a good group of women here. You have some that made the game, some that did not. And some of these women... Kelly Clark's toast, right? Too old.

Bye-bye. That was the last hurrah from Miss Clark. Super athlete. Incredible fucking physique. She's the Ferrari. She came close. We'll see. I still think she's got an outside chance next year,

and then that's probably her last chance. Fee Sagafi looking yoked down there with Matt Torres, right? Yeah. I'll be curious to see what improvements she makes this year. Definitely has the potential to make the games, has obviously not put it together the last two years, but still has a lot of fire and passion to compete in the sport obviously it's a training environment that has uh had some success this year and that she's excited about

as well so i think it's all everything's looking good for feet what what happens what happened to danielle brandon after the games has there has she talked or reported or posted anything about where she's going to end up i mean it seems like she went back to ve about where she's going to end up? I mean, it seems like she went back to Vegas and she's trying to tie up all the odds and ends there, get out of release, sell her stuff, and then she'll move. But I don't know if she's posted anything about where she'll move or what her intentions are. I'm on a text thread and someone's posted a picture. It just blew by it really fast.

But it said she's selling her plants. And I didn't know if that was a joke or she was really selling plants. Does she have plants she's selling? Well, she's trying to lease out her apartment. She's selling some of her beds. I can't remember if she was selling the plants or she said, if you lease out the apartment for the last couple of months, then you get these free plants.

Oh, God. I wonder if I could get those plants and put them on eBay and be like, these plants have seen Danielle Brandon naked. oh god i wonder if i could get those plants and put them on ebay and be like daniel these plants have seen daniel brandon naked people buy weird shit so good luck yeah daniel that you should help me i'll market your shit for you i'll say cool i know how i can market your beds and your plants uh hit me up hit me up text me call me i'll market all that shit it gets you double double value only take only take 3%. I have ideas.

Everyone's saying she's moving to Florida. I think that's also true, but I don't know that she's announced it publicly. So we'll just let her do that when she wants. Okay. Paige Semenza, we talked about her. She is the one who took second place to Emma. No, that was Paige Powers. I'm confusing Paige Powers and Paige Semenza, right?

Both on this list, though. Paige Semenza was second to Haley Adams at the Syndicate Crown and finished just ahead of Alexis Raptus. She finished 21st at the Games this year, which is an improvement. I would also consider her to be one of the people who showed some improvement at the games this year, along with the others that Tyler mentioned. And Paige Powers was second at Atlas Games by eight points. Emma Lawson, yes.

And you did not see Bethany Shadburn compete this year or last year. At the games, not last year, but previously she did compete the rest of the season. But you haven't seen her compete at the Games two years. Yeah, and honestly, I don't know if she's going to be able to. I don't know if Bethany is going to try to compete again this year or not. If she does, I would put her even higher than this on the list, probably 20 to 25. And if she even comes back and does one competition

and shows anything like what she was before, I'd move her up another 10 spots into the 10 to 15 range. This is a conservative ranking of her based on her potential, but I felt like it's kind of like Taylor self. Like if I knew he was healthy and competing, I'd put him higher. If I knew that he wasn't competing, I'd take him off lists altogether. So I kind of put Bethany here, which I think is a okay spot for her, given the fact that I'm not really sure what her intentions are competition wise this season. Just wanted to recognize the fact that she wasn't in the field and she is a

notable name that would make an impact on the field. If she does compete. Something's weird here. You, you, you, you kind of have this, this miracle character, Alex Gazan.

I don't want to call her a one-hit wonder, but she definitely amongst the group feels a little bit like a specialist. And then you have Danny Spiegel, who was perceived as a specialist, but I think has proven us wrong. And she's more well-rounded than we ever thought, and she finished 17th at the Games. And then you have Bethany Shadburn, who, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, she's retired.

She's done. It just seems like Danny Spiegel's not in the right place. Just recognize that there are 12 women ahead of Danny. Carolyn Prevo. Hold on, hold on. Okay, so Danny Spiegel and down. Everyone that's Danny Spiegel and down, there are 12 women on the list ahead of them

that did not compete as an individual at the CrossFit Games this year. So if you take those 12 women out of the equation, then Danny's at 22nd, which is not so egregious relative to her 17th place finishing at the Games. And the same thing can be said for Gazan and powers and Prevo and rail and Troy and McElligian. So bump them all up 12. If those 12 women aren't in the picture,

but those, if those 12 women are in the picture, then you have to consider them. And personally, I would take each one of those 12 against Danny Spiegel in a competition in upcoming calendar season. Holy shit. So I just want to,

I want to, I want to let you put in perspective. What fine okay i see it all right fine i'm starting to see what you said i was going to push back but i think you're right remember before the game basically brian saying in a one-on-one competition these names that i'm about to mention to you man this is this is intense this is good shit are better than danny spiegel in a one-on-one competition he's seen in a one-on-one competition bethany shadburn chloe wilson page simenza emma tall emma rolf thorough held a daughter madeline sturt matilda garns annika greer karen freyova jacqueline dalstrom's jamie simmons and Sigmund's daughter. I can't believe you have her rank so high could beat a Danny in a one-on-one competition.

Just jumping up here real quick. What is Annika Greer proven enough? She's a fucking kid. What have we seen of her? I mean, I like her. I put her down at like 89. Well,

so maybe some people would agree with you. Yeah. I think Annika has tremendous potential this it's obviously a a what you would call a risky pick i talked about how doing this entire thing is risky in some regard but yeah i see a ton of potential in annika and i think that she certainly has top 30 potential at the games next year and i don't i don't really think that's that big of a stretch to say uh bruce, no way Anika beats Donnie. I wouldn't say in a one-on-one.

No way, he says from Florida. No way. No way. A one-on-one competition is kind of weird also. So in a one-on-one, I don't know, because Dani has some amazing things that she can do. But Anika, that's enough to have. Sean with the political innuendos.

Disgusting. No, but I'm talking about in a competition full of elite level women. I think they could outrank Danny Spiegel come the end of the competition. So you have hope for Sarah Sigmund's daughter, the most popular person in

all of CrossFit. You believe that we will see her. You think she's – I would have lumped her. Remember in the beginning of the show we talked about people who are ascending homeostasis or descending? I would have thrown her in the descending. I would have figured we'd see her like in the commentary booth next year, like that much descending, like where you see Dan Bailey and Josh Bridges, or even Rich Froning. So big time, he goes to Rogue Classic and only competes in one or two events so he can go home and watch his kids play soccer.

Rich? Published an article earlier this year alongside David Arsenault talking about Sarah Sigmundsdottir's history competing when she's healthy. She's not even 30 years old yet. She's 28 or 29 now. And I think that if she takes a calculated approach to the season more along the lines of a Brent Fikowski and doesn't try to compete in every off-season competition, that there's a chance that she comes back to being relevant in the sport, meaning top 20 at the games. Obviously, I have her just outside the top 20 on this list, but I'm also aware of the fact that she might not do that. So one of the things that often gets in Sarah's own way is Sarah and that she wants to compete and that even if you have a great coach that has given you the best advice or whatever,

if the athlete ends up saying, hey, I want to do this competition and I've been invited to it, like, what are you going to say? You can either say to her, okay, well, if you want to do this competition and I've been invited to it. Like, what are you going to say? You can either say to her, um, okay, well, if you want to work with me, you're not. And then she leaves or you can say, okay, let's get ready for it. And then see what happens. So, you know, if she wants to compete in the off season competitions and that prevents her from getting back to full health again this year, then she probably won't make it. But if she has a, uh, calculated and planned approach and takes the time that's needed to rebuild her strength to where she thinks she should be, because that's what's happening on the competition floor, she's trying to lift weights under pressure and intensity that her

body's not prepared for, and it's negatively impacting the rest of her competition and competitive season, then we won't see her return to prominence. But if she takes the time to do that, I think there's a good chance that we can get a couple more really fun and competitive years from her wow um do you have you talked to her do you have any insight on that have you talked to snorri about her no uh kate kuhawa sarah's not the most popular person in all of CrossFit. Kate, yes, she is. I have spoken. I have spoken. Madeline Sturt, fucking love her. Jay Crouch's chick or Jay Crouch is her dude.

So bummed that I don't get to see her at the games every year. She is, I really like watching her compete. I would, I'd fucking throw five bucks at watching her and danny spiegel have a fucking uh five competition one day event one-on-one that would be fucking awesome to see her her and danny go head to head yeah maddie's a proven um games athlete in my opinion she made it four straight years she had respectable finishes there it wasn't like she was bottom five and bottom 10 she was finishing right around 20th several a couple years in a row and uh yeah it's just really really difficult to qualify out of that continent right now so we don't get to see

uh any more than three of them in any given year for the time being yeah that sucks who do you know can you fix that you you you're friends with justin Justin Berg now, right? And Adrian, like you were at the games, like rubbing shoulders with them. I was very happy with the conversations I was able to have with them at the games. Obviously, they're very busy, so it wasn't very extensive. And I feel good about the direction that they're trying to move this thing and the conversations that I know that they're trying to move this thing and the conversations that I know that they're having and the way that they're scrutinizing their performance and season last year, I think are all positive things. I don't know what that means in terms of the dynamic of the allocation of game spots for next season, but I'm always going to be of the opinion that I want to see the best 40 there

and I don't care where they're from and I don't care where they, who they train with or anything like that. There's nothing to do with skin color, place of birth or anything else to me. I want to see the best of the best. What if they have a penis? What if they have a penis? Then there's a men's division for that.

Oh, of all the things that you would like to see maybe tweaked. I know you love the CrossFit Games. You're happy with it this year. I know you're stoked. The whole thing was dope. I'm not insinuating that anything was wrong with it. But of all the things you would like to see tweaked, is that really the top thing?

You'd like to see more women from Oceania, more men, more Australia? I want to see a format that gets the best thing you'd like to see more women from oceania more men more i want to see a format that gets the best 40 people there okay you said that sorry okay you're right and look and okay so then let me re-ask the question so you'd like to see that maybe tweaked a little bit you feel like it's missing maybe a little bit i've also acknowledged like i don't mind that you say well we're always going to hold one spot per continent. If that's it. And you say, fine, there are five continents. There's other six that we count from one, two, three, four, five, six, six continents. There's none from, it's from Antarctica, six continents, those six spots, everyone gets at least one,

the other 34 spots. Those are up for grabs, whatever. And we're going to get the best of the rest of the world. I would be okay with that. Guaranteeing two spots to South American women who have never proven on a competition floor that they can hang. I don't understand that. Same thing with 20, you know, whatever. I've talked a lot about that. So I just want to see the best women there. I want to see the best men there.

I want to see the best level of competition in heats one through four. I want to see athletes who have a chance to make an impact on the leaderboard event after event. I want to see top times from heats one and two that the athletes in heats three and four are like, oh, shit, I don't know if I can beat that. That's really fucking impressive because those athletes exist out there and they're not always getting the opportunity because there's just a limited number of spots in their part of the world. So if you were to make Adrian a shit sandwich, it would be like, man, the programming was amazing. I think it would be great to make sure we got the best athletes in the world there. And wow,

you really know how to maximize and make a great fan experience. That would be kind of the shit sandwich. Just throw that thing in the middle. No comment. Okay. Number 11 through 20, we're at the top 20. Is there anyone in this top 20 who did not go to the games this year? Olivia Kersetter, Katrin Davies-Zutter, and Emma Carey. Okay. And of those, let's talk about those. Why didn't Emma Carey go to the uh crossfit games this year injury she

decided to pull out in the second week of the open with the deadlift burpee workout i don't think she was ever able to rehab her back to full strength after tweaking it in dubai i think that was an intelligent decision much along the lines of what i talked about with sarah sigman's daughter if you want to you know if you just got it out through the season and see what happens you're probably setting yourself backwards for the next couple of seasons. Her and her coach, Matt Torres, made the opposite decision. They said, okay, it sucks. It's unfortunate.

Obviously, we want to compete. But she's young. Pull her out. Give a full season, 12 months to rehab, rebuild, set a new foundation, and come back better and stronger. A lot of people on the comments seem to think that this is too low of a ranking for Emma Carey and they could be right. They could be right.

But for now with what we've seen from her and the overall development of the rest of the women's field, I think this is a good spot to put her having not seen her compete healthy since last two years ago at the games. There's a lot of hype around her justifiably. So we just need to see a little more and she could skyrocket in to the names, right. Of the, with the Emma Lawson's, Mal O'Brien's, Haley Adams. She can, she could climb up there. We just need to see it. Right.

Yeah. I think Emma carries potential in general is very high. I want, you know, it's never that, so it's, it's usually not a very good sign when you're that young and have an injury like that, especially a back injury. However, we've seen a lot of athletes in this sport bounce back or come back from, or have a serious injury in another sport and then, you know, become relevant in CrossFit. so i want to put it past her to overcome that set a new trend and be a you know top 10 threat for the next several years uh but she still has to do it you know where i go if i hurt my back you know where i'd go if i was a daniel brandon or emma carrie you know which camp i'd go to can't wait to find out i'd go to iceland short train with yami yep i would get i'd get fucking

right snuggle up with yami and annie and you know why right his background is a pt and and her yeah he's a fucking he's a he's a wizard in that regard he's unbelievable and if you're training if you're and her dude she fucked herself she annie thought she was toast he brought he brought her well with her she came back from the dead i i'm i'm pretty sure she she was certain her career was over i think she's sure yeah and i think i've talked to her about it yeah sorry go ahead no yeah yami is incredible and uh one of the i think uh people that don't don't necessarily know is that you know he has that background and that's part of what he offers as a coach is the ability to provide body work to you there on site if you're one of his top athletes i've never i've never heard anyone anyone uh

complain about him he's fucking amazing he's got a ton of resources he's respected by everyone and um i just like the idea of just being up there and being isolated and what it could fucking do to an athlete the lack of sun's kind of weird uh but but people who have had back injuries um you know like a sarah sigman's daughter daniel brandon emma carrie i mean shit like are you all in move to iceland call annie and be like yo, I want to be the next Annie Thor's daughter. I mean, Emma Carey, the other one you mentioned was Olivia Kerstetter. I mean, I can't. God, I would love to see her just next year step into the games and win it all.

I love I love everything that her and Jacob Heppner portray on Instagram about their lifestyle, their persona, their attitude. I just love her. Yeah. And I think there's been some criticism. She's maybe too high on this list. But, you know, it goes back to that conversation we had about Emma Lawson is the top females and the women's teenage division have proven that they can enter into the elite division and be relevant. And I have not seen anything from her that makes me think otherwise. Um, and, uh, I don't know for sure if she'll compete next year in the open division. I think that she probably will.

She had the opportunity to this year. She likely would have made the games anyway, and we would have a better opportunity to justify a ranking like this so very much is a forward thinking and you know a bit of a risky high pick but i don't think it's offset based on her off base based on what we've seen her do and what we've seen people women other young women like her do uh and then you have katrin david's daughter the two-time champion yeah it's taking a lot of heat for this one. If I could pigeonhole you, I'm going to ask you a question that's completely loaded, and if you want to wiggle your way out of it, it's fair. But if I told you there's two choices, choice A, she's not as good as she used to be,

or choice B, the pack has gotten too good for her. Could you put her in one of those categories? More likely the second, the pack has gotten too good for her. The packs, the pack has definitely improved. Here's like catch and barely missed making the games this year.

There's a lot of people that have different opinions about why that might be, whether it's based on her personal things, the fact that she moved in off season maybe a different level of focus maybe physically on the decline i don't know um i but what i do think is that if katrin had been at the games she would have done fine i mean probably finished 10th to 20th and that's what i'm projecting here is that if she refocuses, rededicates and makes another run at going to the CrossFit Games and is able to get there, I think she can make a top 20 finish. Wow. OK, fair enough. You've been high on Alexis Raptus in the past. She's just outside the top 10 at the CrossFit Games this year. uh top 10 at the crossfit games this year she finished 10th so i didn't i didn't really um

i moved annie all the way up there and that's why she gets bumped out of the top 10 on this list otherwise the top 10 at the games this year were the were the top 10 on my list there's a top 11 including annie uh yeah i think alex, I mean, we talked about her. She was so close the year before, much like Dallin Pepper was, just barely missed out, seemed to have a lot of potential. That was probably a good thing for her. Lit a fire. Last season seemed to be great for her. The whole season, I think she was healthy, training well,

obviously has improved, had a really good run at the games. Top 10 finish in your first year is incredible, and I think that we'll see more of the same from her going forward i don't know how many of the women ahead of her she can catch this season so i have her right there about where she finished this year but if she did you know pass a couple of them up and moves into the eighth seventh sixth on the list um that would be impressive uh i just don't know if i see it yet god i mean look at these look at these ladies um ariel lowen so what's your reservation about putting her um i and i know you've said this before and you probably don't say it enough

hey guys there's only fucking 10 spots in the top 10. Like what the fuck you guys, you get, you fucking pundits want there to be 16 spots or 20 spots in the top 10. And there's not, but you have Ariel low on at 11th. There's, there's nothing we've seen except this one data point 28.

There's nothing. She's shown us that she isn't going to be better next year she she's she's like she's she's just she had to qualify through the last chance qualifier this year okay all right but no and i know someone's asking how could you possibly have ellie turner ahead of ariel lowen and that's like pretty that's honestly is a pretty simple question to answer it's like we've talked about ell Turner and her potential, her ceiling, like we talked about earlier in the episode is very high.

She's super young and she's in a new training environment. She's been in for a couple of months with Justin Medeiros, fittest on earth. And Adam Neifert, who we've talked about as possibly being a top three or five coach of all time. And if you, if you stay in that environment for another 12 months,

sorry, I don't mind if you fuck it up. I was just showing. Thank you. Thank you. Medeiros. If you stay in that, if you stay in that environment for another 12 months, Sorry. I don't mind if you fuck it up. I was just showing. Thank you. Thank you. If you stay in that environment for another 12 months with what she's already proven, she's capable of doing at a young age. It's, you know, it's not that far fetched to see her be one of these people that, that moves up the list. And I agree with Ellie Turner.

The ceiling seems to be, you know, in a couple of years, if she ends up being the CrossFit Games champ, no one's going to be like, oh, I didn't see that coming. Right.

And I would be shocked if she was a CrossFit Games champ, but I wouldn't be shocked if she had a top five finish. And, but you put Olivia Kerstetter above her. So you, you give a lot of weight to the unknown. Yeah. 12 months out. Right.

Okay. I'm taking some liberties and some, you know, it's, uh, but it's one of those things. If you, if you brought me onto this show and showed me this list and said, Hey, someone made the, this list. Can you make the case for Ariel low and beating Allie Turner? Yeah, I can make that case too. Um, and that's, you know, some of the stuff that I, that I wrestle with, it's very difficult, uh, you know, to, to put them in, in, you know, some people, someone recommended to me, Oh, you should just do tears. It would be a lot easier on yourself. And I'd be like, yeah, I could do that, but it's not as fun. And it's, uh, you know,

it doesn't create as much opportunity for conversation like this. And, um, I could do that, but it's not as fun. And it's, you know, it doesn't create as much opportunity for conversation like this. And I don't think you have a tier. It's the it's the 101 through 125. That's the crumb tier. You just you just get in there alphabetically. That's right. You have 100 placements in one tier. You don't want to be in the tier.

Lucy Campbell, that's the lady from the UK with the strong accent who won the swim event she won the swim event and the final event jackie pearl what does she have to do to uh wow she won two events not only did she win that event this she won it out of the second to last heat and she won it following the back nine workout which was she posted about this on Instagram. But in the, in the moment on that day, I watched her failing those cleans. I thought it was kind of weird. I didn't know all the stuff that was going on mentally for her. And that that's been a block, like a physical, a mental block in her training. I saw tears coming out of her eyes as she was leaving the competition floor. And I'm like, damn, like she might just be done for this weekend.

I'm a little worried about the final. The fact that she went into the back, did whatever she did, came back out, won her heat, and that time held up and ended up winning the event speaks more to me. I've talked about this before with Lazar Jukic and Jason Hopper and some of these others, as opposed to people who would just have something bad happen and then they dwell on it and it ends up having a negative repercussion on other events. She didn't have that at all the most the thing she was fearing the most coming in happened and she bounced back from it an hour later and won an event at the games so that's to me as a high level competitive mindset that some athletes are missing that she clearly has and then if you couple that with the fact that

she obviously has some home run potential she's good under the gymnastic stuff. She's good with the endurance stuff and she's got she has some room to do with the weightlifting. So if she can put herself in an environment where she can move past whatever is holding her back in the weightlifting domain, then, yeah, I think she can improve on her performance next year as well. It must be like a bad acid trip on some in some of these athletes heads when shit goes sideways. It must be just how you handle it. It cool if you yeah i know it would be so cool like to be like step into someone's head like just for like 30 seconds and be like oh fuck what i can't handle that uh who's better lucy campbell or gu Guy Malheros? I would say Guy right now. Okay.

But you had to think for a second. And I bring that up to let you guys know that, like, Lucy Campbell, she's a bit of a wild card, right? As far as this goes, she's got some outlier shit going on, right? Like Guy. She's really good. But it's kind of weird to win that swim event. Makes you a weirdo.

I picked her to win that one. It wasn't an easy pick. There are definitely some other women that are very competitive in this water. But she also won a swimming event at Guadalupe. Her swimming background is, I think, unrivaled, really, compared to the other women. True. And that makes you a weirdo. When you're winning swimming events at CrossFit, you're the weirdo.

I'd like to see you tell that to Yonah Koski's face. Yeah, never. And maybe I do it through StreamYard. It's going to be, has anyone ever won? Here you go, Brian. Here you go. Schroeder, Halpin, fire up the brains. Tyler Watkins. Has anyone, Brian. Here you go. Schroeder, Halpin, fire up the brains. Tyler Watkins.

Has anyone, Mr. Young, has anyone ever won the CrossFit Games who also won the swim event at the Games? Yeah, Tia, like five times. Oh, shit. That was too easy. Fuck. I thought I was being cool. All right. We already talked about, do you want to talk about anyone else in here

christy o'connell is just i keep thinking her career is over i keep expecting her to retire no it's actually a good it's a good like to paint the picture of this this range of women so you have you know alexis raptus olivia kersetter ellie turner um lucy campbell and emma carey that are young young and up and coming and will continue to get better. And then on the flip side, you have five other women here, Barnhart, McQuaid, O'Connell, Lowen, and David's daughter that are 28 and older. And so, you know, we're going to see what happens and how long they can stay in this conversation. And this is actually, you know, this is what the documentary was all about that Mariah and that team made for 2021.

And they'll have to make some kind of a follow-up to paint this picture even further now, is that right now at the position we have in this space, at this sport, and especially with the women in this tier of athletes, is that old guard that have been competing for a while that are still incredible. And these young women that are coming that are, you know, kind of matching them. And at what point is that young group just going to move right past them? And it's going to happen at some time. I think that right now there's still a good blend in that regard, and that's why you see I have a young couple older, a couple younger,

a couple up and coming, less known, more known, whatever. That's the fun stuff to talk about and to see. Can Katrin continue to beat Emma Carey and Olivia Kerstetter? Or is this the last time see. Can Katrin continue to beat Emma Carey and Olivia Kerstetter? Or is this the last time we've seen Katrin there? And if these girls do end up coming back and making it that are only 16, 17, 18, 20, 22 years old, how good

can they be? Sean, in 2021, Olivia snatched more than the entire individual women's field. She is insanely strong. Hiller's next video is cursed that are natty or not ryan you're supposed to say something like yes she's strong incredibly strong uh has anyone else won has anyone else won the swim event besides tia and also won the CrossFit Games. Did Fraser ever? Nope, I don't think so.

He got second to Sam Kwant in 2020 in the swimming event. And I don't think he's ever won it. Australia, the land of the swimmers. And we get back to our top 10. And the only thing that brian and i talked about before coming on the air about this show was yesterday i was poking him about where he was going to put his favorite athlete you guys won't guess it only the smart ones will guess it. Gabriela Magawa. He also pointed out that not only does he like Gabriela Magawa, but he is a huge fan. Huge fan.

He said he was, my words, not his, but I felt that his bias comes from the fact that she is brothers. No, dating one of Brian's favorite athletes of all time uh christoph horvat um how would tell be honest with me where how did gabby make 10 and was she somewhere else before did she get moved around a lot like did you was she at 15 and then and then 10 is the lowest i would put her on the list but but she did she sorry before before you answer that you I would put her on the list. But, but she did. She. Sorry, before, before you answer that, you would have put her. The CrossFit games, how she performed at the CrossFit games is you're really influenced you negatively about her. Right.

You expected more than eight from her. And since she didn't live up to your expectations, she took a hit. Right. Yeah. I think I can't remember if I placed like you can't believe Daniel Brandon and Brooke Wells and Emma Lawson beat her. No, I can believe it. I would say. Yeah, Emma Lawson was one that I that exceeded my expectations.

I thought the best that she could do this year at the games was 10th. I said I thought she had a range of 10th to 30th. She obviously did better than that. the best that she could do this year at the games was 10th. I said, I thought she had a range of 10th to 30th. She obviously did better than that. And I'm weighing it heavily in terms of these rankings for next season, especially because we have to assume Emma's got better is already 1% better than she was two months ago. Yeah. Daniel Brandon.

Uh, I had conservatively ranked her 10th or 11th, something like that. There were some colleagues of mine that were ranking her third, fourth, fifth, I think. And obviously she's lived up to that potential. I will say, you know, in general, I do fade, I guess you would say, in terms of her ranking, like fade on some athletes a little bit more. I want to see Danielle do it again. And again, I think I dropped her down a little bit. I have a little bit more confidence in consistency from some others.

And, uh, Gabby's kind of in the same boat. A lot, some people were picking her to finish on the podium. Some people thought she might even do as well as second. A lot of people had her fourth or fifth. I think I might've had her fourth and either fourth, fifth or sixth on my rankings, uh, before the games. And she underperformed relative to that. There were some, you know, it's this always happens at the games. There were some things that were unfortunate. There were some things that were exposed there that maybe she wasn't counting on or they were exposed more often than she was hoping for. She also got a break with not having to do the Lagos rope climb. She's one of the women that would have been impacted heavily

by that. But overall, when you're looking at the ranking and you see someone like Gabby who can be exposed in a few workouts or a few combinations of movements or whatever the structure of these tests are, and you're trying to compete with women that have fewer holes or fewer opportunities to be exposed, then that's why she ends up down towards 10 instead of up towards 5. Fair. When I look at this list, sorry, this list, and these first seven women, Kara Saunders, Emma Lawson, Brooke Wells, Danielle Brandon, Laura Horvath, Mal O'Brien, T to me, the nice things that you could say about them are just endless, right? Like, holy shit to you. You fucking did it again.

My God, Mal, you just keep getting better. You have no fucking glass ceiling. Good job, Laura, staying in with the fucking best of the best year after year daniel brandon your fucking life was a fucking train wreck and you took fourth you're the fourth fittest woman in the world like you're a fucking mental giant brooke wells maybe the scariest publicized accident since kevin ogar that we got to see in crossfit and for all of us to see and you came back and took fifth. Emma Lawson, endless glass ceiling. Kara Saunders, you act like it's nothing for you. You're the casual CrossFitter who came and took top 10.

And then you get to Gabriela and Haley Adams. I would say really those two of the top 10 women are the two that underperformed relative to expectation in terms of overall finish on the leaderboard this year. Right. Then it's, you're a little bit shocked, right?

You're a little like, wow. I mean, these other people, these Emma Lawsons and Daniel Brandons, they're making their name off the fact that they beat up Gabriella Magawa and Haley Adams. Yeah.

I mean, Haley looked legit at the games. You can't say she looked bad she was fucking savage i'm working on some uh some stuff to put into better context what actually happened to gabby and hayley at the games this year oh cool are you gonna do that on my show please i'm asking i will write about it and in an article format. And then there could be an opportunity to talk about it. Yeah,

for sure. Asking Brian friend directly asking you as a person, did you, did you enjoy this experience? Is this something you're going to continue to do the top 100? Yeah, I did enjoy it. I knew that I know that putting out a list like this is uh has a high potential to upset certain people i knew that there was a chance that i would forget people

um which i try my best not to do of course and i apologize to those when uh happened but but two things one i appreciate all the female comics even the ones that kind of seem aggressive or, you know, juvenile, it still is an opportunity for me to be, you know, critical of myself. And then there's just a continued opportunity to learn. You know, I don't, I don't, you know, I can't, I can't gain all the knowledge about all of the athletes all over the world without some input from other people. And I'm really grateful that I do have some contacts in different parts of the world that put athletes on my radar sometimes before they should be or would be otherwise. And this is another example of that. You know, someone messaged me about a woman named Abigail Domet. I don't know anything about her, but I marked her down over here as someone that I want to learn about, for example. And there's a few others similar to that.

So I think it's an opportunity for everyone to maybe learn some more about these athletes as we talk about them, and then also for me to increase the breadth of the knowledge of athletes out there who are trying to become great in this sport. You're muted, I think. Otherwise, I can't hear you. Sorry. When I see a comment like this from kelly lewis it says this list is ridiculous i hope everyone takes it with a grain of salt this is just comical wait read the next two comments i will in just a second i i don't understand why people write stuff like that that's completely vapid and pointless and like brian can take nothing from it it's like it's like i'm walking by someone's house not liking the way they cut their lawn and instead of telling them throwing a rock through their window like with the same

effort that you took to pick up the rock and throw it through the window you could have wrote a note that said hey dip shit you didn't edge your lawn and you're making the neighborhood look bad like do like if you're gonna be an asshole like do it don't be a fucking bitch don't be don't don't waste your time writing something that no one can do anything with you you're the little kid over there throwing a temper tantrum in the corner the next two comments are kelly show us a better one and please include research to back your list brian says i spoke to kelly privately she offered more concrete concerns but i appreciate that and it shows how kind you are to take the time to do that um with her but please and i'm sorry if kelly's actually

a dude i know that name can go both ways but people if you're gonna talk shit like really say it like be like hey brian you missed this person maybe you should spend less time fucking throwing frizz maybe you've been hit too many times in the head with the frisbee like you can even make an assessment like that did you get hit with the frisbee golf uh thing today because you missed so and so now we have a uh you're at your you're telling us why brian's not thinking clearly because you assume that he got hit by a frisbee golf uh and then it is interesting because there have been an elementary fucking idiocy yes and i'm something to back it up there were some people who made some uh empty threats names accusations this is a shit list you're an idiot you're not valid whatever

analyst and instead of taking offense to those i just dm them privately and said hey man i saw your comment i'm sorry you were offended i'd love to know more specifically what you think i could have done better or if there's a specific athlete you think I misranked or someone that you know about that I maybe don't. And in those private conversations, all those people are actually helpful. But those comments, just like you said, just picking up the rock and throwing it is not really helping anyone. It's going to incite someone else to say something about you, or it's preventing you from having an opportunity to tell me what you think with the opportunity that i can then improve in what i'm trying to do because of that you have to

remember we're lucky we have the list the list and someone wrote here and i don't i don't mean to pick on you but someone said the the list is meant to start a debate no it's more than that this guy fucking put effort in and made the fucking list and we're lucky we fucking have it so we can talk about it i don't know about brian for president don't get fucking carried away here all right uh brian thanks for doing this what the california hormones games yes yes yes um when um when we did the the men's top 100 i had asked you when do you think we'll have an update you said probably after the open i think before the open before the open so after guadalupalooza which i consider to be kind of the last significant off-season or pre-season event

there's a probably going to, I think it's like a six-week period of time before the Open. So I think during that time would be a great time to revisit this with obviously some more information about a lot of the athletes and also an opportunity to include or exclude athletes who we've learned about their intentions for next season. So just for example, I spoke to Lena Richter this morning, who is the captain for CrossFit Oslo Navy blue. She is intending to compete individually this year. And I will certainly include her on the next iteration of this list as she is without a doubt at a bare minimum, one of the best 50 women in the world and possibly even much better than that. Uh, if I had half a brain or, uh, just, or just more resources, this list would live on the website, the Savant podcast.

Hopefully one day we will have a place where you can go on our website where you can see all the rankings. It needs to be sooner than later. Very soon, Brian will be doing a show with the updating the all time best CrossFitters. And I think that the all time best list is men and women mixed together, right? Nope. We could do that if you wanted to, but I think that it's more interesting to talk about them separately. And that's a top 10 list, right?

Top 10 best. No, I think I'm going to do at least 20, maybe 30. Okay, fantastic. Okay. So those are, that's a show. Maybe 25. That might be the. Okay, fantastic. Okay, so that's a show. Maybe 25. That might be the perfect number, 25. You'll have to wait and find out, people.

So I think that show is sooner than later. I'm trying to think if we have – do we have any other shows scheduled, Brian, you and I? Talking about some. Okay. Oh, right, right, right. Oh, right, right, right. Right. Okay. It doesn't look like I have a show scheduled tomorrow.

Wait. I have something scheduled tomorrow. Very important. So I'm unavailable. Okay. What are you doing? This golf tournament. Oh, like a legit one?

Yeah. Like you have to pay money to enter it? Yeah. You have to have a PDGA number. It's a PDGA-sanctioned tournament, and I'll get a rating for it. And, yes, you have to pay to play. Okay, hold on. I don't know if my calendar is up to date here.

I do have to get going, though. Okay, bye. Thank you. Thank you. You're a good dude. Okay, bye. Colton says he loves these shows. We love him. Okay. You. Thank you. Thank you. You're a good dude. Okay, bye. Colton says he loves these shows. We love him.

Okay. You can hang up if you want to. You can hang on. Okay, bye. Bye, Brian. Call Sousa real quick and see if we have a show scheduled tomorrow. Either way, if we don't have a show scheduled tomorrow, we'll do a live call-in show for sure.

I just don't see one here, which I'm really surprised. He's not answering. He's probably at the CrossFit gym, CrossFit Livermore, working. Someone has to work. All right. Thanks, guys. Fantastic show. We will see you tomorrow.

I'll get something up and scheduled right away maybe i'll tell you some other shows that we have scheduled uh we on the 28th at 7 a.m we have the not top 10 with taylor self and jr then monday the 29th i see nothing oh jorge ventura is coming on the show on Tuesday the 30th. Holy shit. Tuesday the 30th, we have Alex Stein in the morning. I don't know if you guys have seen. Alex Stein's been brawling with not only AOC at the Capitol steps. He was talking about the size of her butt and how nice it is.

But then at 7 p.m., 12 hours later, we have Jorge Ventura on the world's greatest border journalist. So that's going to be a hell of a day. Okay, and then on the 31st, I have a travel day. And on the evening of the 31st, I'll do something. I'm just not sure what yet. And then I'll be back home. And it's going to be a gnarly 10 days from september 1st to september 10th i'm not sure how i'm gonna do it all but uh my boys have a jiu-jitsu tournament

at the kaiser center in santa cruz on september 10th and i will be doing everything in my power to get them ready so they continue their career of beating up other little kids. I mean, I mean, I mean, uh, learning to be, um, uh, honorable martial artists. Okay, guys, I will see you guys soon. Bye.